Indian Share Market News & Trends

Market Update

* ECONOMY : media rpts bankers expt RBI to raise CRR by 50bps in credit policy
in end Jan.. However do not expect any change in repo or reverse repo rates

* BHEL : Chmn says order book exceeds Rs 350bn in first 9 mths.. Also ties up
with Alstom to mfg electrical locomotives.. says gets 94% of new orders fm pvt
power producers which were earlier predominantly buying fm Chinese cos

* NOVARTIS : may raise its $10.4bn bid for Alcon to appease shareholders

* SUN PHARMA : Tel Aviv district court rules in Taro favour on one case.. Both
cos await supreme court verdict

* STERLITE : puts on hold its proposed Rs23bn copper smelter expansion project
in southern state of Tamil Nadu

* OIL MKTING COS : may get a max cash compensation of Rs150bn in fiscal 2009-10
fm the govt for losses incurred for selling fuel at subsidised rates

* MARUTI SUZUKI : FII holding in the Co reaches caution limit, fresh FII
purchases allowed only after prior RBI approval or via FII blocks

* AXIS BANK : offers home loans @ 8.25%/yr for the first 2 years of tenure

* UTTAM GALVA : for the 2nd time in last one yr, the govt is likely to inspect
financial books of the Co for alleged manipulation of stock price, funds
diversion & some other related matters

* TATA STEEL : Dec sales up 72% @ 636k metric tons YoY

Corporate News - Industry trends

* India today set the stage for global car giants Toyota, Volkswagen
and Honda to unveil to the world their strategy and models for the
high-growth small-car market. The platform was the 10th Auto Expo
being held in the national capital (BS)

* Mukesh Ambani and Anand Jain promoted Mumbai SEZ Ltd has
suspended, for an indefinite period, its land acquisition for the Maha
Mumbai SEZ in coastal Raigad. The company may drop the project
altogether, as it was not able to acquire "a minimum of 1,000 hectares
of contiguous land" as mandated by the SEZ Act (BS)

* BHEL says private power producers, which were predominantly buying
equipment from Chinese companies, are turning to it in a big way;
BHEL Chairman and Managing Director B P Rao said the company had
bagged orders worth Rs 300bn between April 2009 and December
2009 for erecting 11,700 Mw of capacity. Of these, 11,200 Mw were
from independent power producers (IPPs), constituting about 94% of
the OB (BS)

* Pinched by rising raw material prices, fast moving consumer goods
(FMCG) companies, especially manufacturers of packaged foods and
soaps, may raise prices or reduce grammage per pack over the next
one or two quarters (BS)

* Tata Steel said sales from its Indian operations rose 73% in
December to 636,000 tonnes from a year earlier. India sales for the
December quarter rose 49% to 1.60 mn tonnes (BS)

* IVRCL Infrastructure and Projects Ltd have bagged orders worth
Rs 9.5 bn in transportation, water and irrigation, buildings and power
sectors. The company has a backlog of over Rs 10bn orders from oil
and gas sectors, with four projects under execution. The order book
position is at over Rs 220bn (BS)

* JSW Steel, the country's largest private sector steel maker by
domestic capacity, said its production rose 88% to 1.469 mn tonnes in
the third quarter of the current financial year (BS)

* ACC Ltd has set up its 16th plant in the country at a cost of Rs 3700
mn. The fully automated cement grinding plant, a greenfield project,
has an annual capacity of 1.2 mn tonnes of cement. It is located in
Kudithini village, situated 25 km from Bellary in Karnataka (BS)

* Tata Motors Ltd may consider launching its ultracheap Nano car in
the US in three years, following possible sales in Europe by the end of
2011. (Mint)

* L&T Infotech has bagged two important turnkey enterprise resource
planning projects for computerising the maintenance of rolling assets
of Indian Railways. The projects have been won against stiff
competition from major IT companies (BL)

* Maruti Suzuki said at the Auto Expo that it aimed to jack up its total
output by 50% to 1.5 mn units in five years; The strategy is for
defending its market share in India, where almost one in two cars sold
is a Maruti (BS)

* Mahindra & Mahindra has approached the Tamil Nadu government
for 253 acres to set up an integrated R&D and engineering centre at
Chennai. The proposed centre would amalgamate operations of the
company's various existing R&D centres in different parts of the
country, including Nashik, Pune, Haridwar and Igatpuri (BS)

* Bharti Airtel, received the nod from Bangladesh's telecom regulator
to purchase 70% stake in Warid Telecom and to invest US$300 mn in
the company (BS)

* ArcelorMittal's proposal to invest Rs 300bn for setting up a steel
plant in north Karnataka has been granted in-principle approval; a
high-level clearance committee of the state government, chaired by
Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, cleared the proposal (BS)

* After a gap of three months, the domestic cement industry is likely
to come back to a double-digit growth trend in December, on the back
of robust demand as the peak construction period sets in (BS)

* Uttam Galva Steels, one of the leading manufacturer and exporter of
value added steel, has increased prices of its products by Rs 3,000 a
tonne with effect from Tuesday (BL)

* Axis Bank launched the 'Power Advantage Home Loan" scheme which
offers housing loans at a fixed interest rate of 8.25% per annum for
the first two years and a floating rate of interest thereafter (BS)

* Maharashtra Electrosmelt, a SAIL subsidiary, will invest Rs 2 bn to set
up a furnace with capacity of 42,000 tonnes per annum at its
Chandrapur plant. (ET)

* ABG Shipyard Ltd, which had sold almost its entire stake in Great
Offshore Ltd before its public offer for buying shares opened, may end
up owning at least 16% stake (Mint)

* Telecom service provider Aircel Ltd will finalize a buyer for its 17,000
telecom towers across the country in the next six weeks. (Mint)
Commodity/Money Market News

* The Centre's open market sale scheme for wheat from the stocks held
by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has run into problems
again; this time, according to trade sources, it is the FCI that is
proving to be a hurdle in going ahead with the sale (BL)

International trends

* The world's top mobile phone maker, Nokia, has launched another
court case against Apple for alleged patent violations, in an
increasingly fierce legal battle between two leaders of the smart phone
market (BS)